@Alix: I am sorry you had to go through that. My ex-fiance cheated on me too, and not with anyone I knew. It is devastating, and you deserve far better.

My mother is the one who cheated on my father and my parents divorced during my first year in college, when I was 18. That was particularly rough because they both felt like I was the only person they could talk to and I was frequently in the middle of their fights.

What was gross about my mom’s affair was that I knew about it, my brother knew, hell, half the town knew about it. My dad suspected it but didn’t know for sure until a mutual friend told him. My mom used to try to get me alone whenever she could so she could talk to me about it. Believe me, the last thing I wanted to do was talk to my mom about her affair. She constantly said, “don’t tell Dad!” and made me lie about where she’d been to my dad. She made me an accomplice to her affair. I didn’t want to lie to my dad but I didn’t want to betray my mom. Unsurprisingly, my brother and I both developed some nasty drug habits and my school work suffered.

I thought I hated my mom for the longest time. I thought she was weak, I resented her for making me a part of it, and I thought she was cowardly for not getting divorced from my dad because she was worried about how she would support herself. As I get older I’ve realized that what I thought was hatred was really just confusion and pity. I’ve come to realize that she’s not particularly mature so I cut her some slack. I’m beginning to see her as an actual woman with thoughts, needs, dreams, and weaknesses and not just My Mom. I know that my dad can be very hard to live with and that their marriage was troubled long before I was born.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I appreciated your post about how feelings change with age and maturity. I hope that one day I can be at peace with this too. Both of my sets of grandparents are divorced because of infidelity and now my parents are, and I’ll admit I’m secretly terrified that if I got married my spouse would cheat on me too. I hope that these fears don’t keep me from living a happy, trusting life, but it’s tough when you only have bad examples.

Actually, it’s a pretty terrific feminist picture book. Not only is Mary Alice / Henrietta a dedicated working gal, but Boss Chicken is ungendered until the very end, when we discover her name is Nancy. I’d like to think that’s part of what we appreciated about it!

Okay, this is completely trivial, but your mention of Henrietta Operator been needling at me for a day now and I just got the click!

Reading your description I remembered loving (LOVING) a really similar book when I was little… An animal telephone operator, something about a box of chocolates… I could just hear my mother reading it, could feel the bunk beds and the carpet and my delight and surprise at this funny story.

But I kept coming back to the title–Henrietta didn’t ring any bell for me… it was Da-da Da-da Operator…. And then just now it clicked. Do you by any chance mean Mary Alice Operator Number 9? This Mary Alice Operator Number 9: http://www.amazon.com/Mary-Alice-Operator-Number-9/dp/0590758101?

Because that was my favorite book for a good longago year, and while it’s wrenching to think of the suffering you went through, I’m glad it was there to comfort you. Box of chocolates and all.

Warmly,
CK

Also, @SarahMC: Your point about one couple who should be divorced is so true. There are a lot of people who are like that. I know my parents would have eventually split, with or without the stepmom; they just had too many real differences in their outlooks on the fundamental things like money, child-rearing, etc. In retrospect, part of me is relieved it happened relatively quickly and I wasn’t living in a house for fifteen years with parents always screaming at each other.